Inside Liam's office...

"The keyholder has demanded my presence you say." Liam slid out a drawer.

Tap. Tap.

Liam knocked up some papers. Then he put that stack of documents into his open drawer.

"That is-" Without warning, the girl pointed her scepter at Liam.

An invisible ray shot forward!

In a blink, that ray had travelled through this short distance. It landed into Liam's head!

Vrrreeemmm...

Everything in this office quivered a little.

Liam looked up. The air surrounding Liam swirled around like hot fume.

At this instance, this nerdy fella emitted an aura like a dignified king. His SS-rank mental pressure freely interacted with the environment.

Under this pressure, the two smite members became surprised and dumbfounded.

A white light blinked in Liam's eyes.

The eyes of the girl in orange became unfocussed.

Clung!

Liam lifted up a dagger, blocking out a sword strike. The locked blades quivered a little, making metal clashing sounds.

"You-" The dude in green battlesuit still looked shocked, even a little terrified.

Bam!

Liam landed a firm punch onto this dude's face.

Thump. Thump.

The two smite team members collapsed onto the ground.

"Seriously... I'm just a harmless researcher..." Liam grumbled as he stood up. "Why am I forced into a fight."

Fixing his lab coat a little, Liam pushed up his glasses. "Looks like we've got trouble..."

Walking out of his office, Liam walked down the corridor.

This floor was much more lively and well-lit. Glass panels separated out the laboratory sections. Looking into the laboratories, researchers worked on various plants, serums, and mana circuit designs.

"Mister Evanstein."

"Sir."

Some researchers stepped to the side.

Wearing a concerned expression, Liam nodded at these guys.

Turning here and there, Liam finally reached the elevator. Tapping his card onto the card reader...

BOOOOP!

"Warning! Warning!" A robotic voice sounded out the speakers. "Unauthorized personnel spotted!"

"Shit." Liam grumbled. He did not look surprised though.

"What's going on?"

"Is there trouble?"

Researchers and guards rushed out of their stations.

"Mr. Evanstein. What do we do?"

Researchers gathered up to Liam. Other guards started to patrol around already.

"It's me." Liam looked around at his subordinates.

"Go back to your stations." Liam took out his phone.

Some listened to Liam's orders and went back. Others stayed here, ready to help their boss.

Opening an app, Liam tapped around, the alarm quickly went away. "Never thought that I'd have to use this one day..."

Tapping around a bit more, the elevator doors opened up. Yet, it was an empty shaft inside.

Liam waited for a moment. After nodding at his phone, Liam threw two metallic disks into this empty space. Those disks fell into the dark shaft. Yet, the next moment, as if being attracted by a magnet, those two disks flew upwards.

The elevator doors closed.

The researchers looked around in confusion.

BOOM!

A muffled explosion could be heard.

A periodic metallic screeching sound followed. The sound got louder, than quickly dwindled.

Something was falling down the elevator shaft!

PUuuuM!

"Bar the elevator entrance. We need to halt the enemies out." Liam looked around.

Hearing this, the researchers started to panic.

"We just need to stall enough time for our elite squads to return. Not a hard task. Correct?" Liam looked around.

"Duchard, I'll leave the emergency exits to you."

A dude nodded and left with his team.

"Murray, I'll leave the ventilations to you."

"Barrette, bar the elevator entrance."

"Smith, this floor's guard is under your command."

After leaving these commands, Liam headed for the emergency exits.

"Sir. Where are you going?"

"Stopping Atlas before it's too late." Liam looked around at his worried subordinates.

"Atlas?"

"Oh. It's Atlas."

The crowd didn't look worried anymore.

"So he did start a coup huh."

"Doesn't sound like a surprise to me."

Shaking his head, Liam walked past this crowd. Unlike his subordinates, Liam didn't feel optimistic about this one at all.

Holding his phone by his head, Liam took a deep breath. "Please pick up..."

...

...

At the other side of Berrystone...

Standing inside this standstill world, Jeff looked up. The falling debris were frozen in the air now. The explosion flames were slowly expanding in air.

'Hmm...' Jeff knitted his brows. 'Trying to trap me? Are there follow-up moves hidden in the debris?'

'Sage mode!' In an instance, the air surrounding Jeff vibrated a little. It's as if there was an immense pressure pressing onto this space. A blue light gradually overflowed from Jeff's eyes.

Holding up a hand, Jeff snapped his fingers.

...

On the outside, blocks away from this building, the coalition force was still trying to break through the enemy lines.

In the chaotic battleground, a loud snap sound travelled down the streets. The next moment, an immense pressure pressed down onto both sides.

For a moment, the fighting stopped.

At the inner defense lines, the void servants turned their gazes to the collapsing building.

Like a pile of dust, the eleven-stories building disintegrated. Like a pile of feathers, the dust slowly fell down. A breeze appeared, brushing that pile of dust into the distance.

Behind the settling veil of the dust cloud, a pair of glowing lights could be seen.

"A-Aehhh..." Hiding behind a car, a void servant curled up on the ground like a shrimp.

"You've got to be kidding..." Someone tried to run away, but shakily collapsed onto the ground.

It's an innate fear inscribed into the genes. At Jeff's presence, these guys simply had no more strength left to move.

Just by standing there, Jeff had basically disarmed all of these guys.

A void servant gritted his teeth, and made eye contact with Jeff.

Thump!

That dude fainted and collapsed onto the ground.

Down the streets, a few blocks away...

"Shit!" A hunter quickly regained his focus.

Under this invisible pressure, that hunter gritted his teeth and chopped his sword at his opponent. It's as if he was moving inside a gel. The hunter's movement became excruciatingly slow.

Nevertheless, the void fighter's movement had been slowed as well.

Chop!

That hunter slammed his glowing sword into his enemy's gauntlet. Without much resistance, the hunter's sword sank into that gauntlet, bring out a spurt of purplish-black blood.

That void fighter's eyes became bloodshot. Something snapped. At this instance, this guy became unaffected from Jeff's presence.

"For the void!" That void fighter landed a kick into the hunter's chest, sending that hunter rolling down the streets.

This situation reoccurred everywhere on this battlefield. At this instance, the tide of battle turned.

However...

'Well. That's unintended.' Jeff exited his sage mode.

The pressure from his presence quickly faded away.

Looking down the streets, Jeff nodded with a concerned expression.

'Looks like I can leave the situation to the coalition force. They can clean up this battle in minutes. '

'I'd better head back to the sanctuary... Something is not right...'

"For the void!"

Without looking at these fearless enemies, Jeff tapped his staff onto the ground.

PAM!

These guys were blasted into the air by an invisible blast wave. Void rifts quickly engulfed these guys. In the next instance, those rifts closed up.

'Still trying to hold me to this place?' Jeff knitted his brows. 'Luring everyone out... Their target is the sanctuary?'

'However, the sanctuary is not left defenceless...' Jeff tidied up his suit a little. 'Other settlements? A hidden location? Where...'

Looking at the direction of the sanctuary, Jeff was ready to walk off.

(Yes. Walk off. Once again, sage mode was needed for sage-tier powers, such as flight.)

Zap!

A glowing formation instantly formed below Jeff.

Jeff looked around. He was trapped inside a pentagon-shaped prism now. The walls looked like red-tinted glass, but glowing. Looking closely, one could see runic characters blinking in the walls.

Looking up, it's a dome at the top.

This was a rather large formation. At the corners of this pentagon prism, there were five guys standing in glowing circles. They were about 50 meters apart from each other.

Beyond these five junctions, the walls extended out.

Looking down from above, one could see a pentagram formation inside a large circle. Forming an external red dome, there's no way for Jeff to receive any external aid now.

The energy signatures of these five void servants quickly elevated.

B-ranks... A-ranks...

An explosive burst of mana!

S-rank reached!

Their energy continued to expand and became denser!

SS-rank reached!

In a blink, their energy ranks had jumped 4 levels!